


passionate

by birlcholtz (justwhatialwayswanted)



Series: Frog Ficlets [9]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: M/M, don't let the description fool you it gets fluffy real fast
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-20
Updated: 2020-03-20
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:46:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23226544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justwhatialwayswanted/pseuds/birlcholtz
Summary: "You always find a way to surprise me," Dex snaps. "What is this, pretend to sympathize with the gay kid and then make it all about you?""Chill, what the fuck? I was not making it about myself, I was trying to make it clear that I fucking understand how you feel."or, Nursey and Dex blunder a little, but they make it work. Eventually.
Relationships: Derek "Nursey" Nurse/William "Dex" Poindexter
Series: Frog Ficlets [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1123719
Comments: 18
Kudos: 178





	passionate

**Author's Note:**

> prompt from bethecrayon on tumblr: "#72. You always find a way to surprise me." thank you!!

"You always find a way to surprise me," Dex snaps. "What is this, pretend to sympathize with the gay kid and then make it all about you?"

Which is a  _ dumb ass conclusion _ to get from Nursey trying to share feelings and empathize and shit.  _ I told Dex I'm bi for this? _ "Chill, what the fuck? I was  _ not _ making it about myself, I was trying to make it clear that I fucking understand how you feel." And Nursey hates that his voice is starting to get a little louder, a little pitchier, but this is so  _ like Dex, _ to take the first thing he thinks and run with it, and it's kind of fucking upsetting because Nursey had  _ just _ been letting himself think that maybe Dex and his fiery hair and his freckles and his smart mouth and his  _ energy _ didn't just fall into Nursey's orbit in vain, that maybe this stupid crush he had on Dex (and the fiery hair and the freckles and the smart mouth and the energy) could go somewhere, and now, well, Dex has taken that bit of hope and stomped on it.

It's something he's very good at. Stomping on hope, that is. Nursey has watched Dex dismantle forwards' goal-scoring ambitions like it's as easy as breathing. He's  _ helped _ Dex do that, and Dex has helped him in return.

"That you understand how I feel? You have  _ two moms, _ Nurse. You—" And then Dex blows all the air out of his lungs in one breath and half-turns away, enough that he's not looking at Nursey, enough that Nursey can barely see his face. "It didn't really help," he adds, and Nursey is about to say 'duh, thanks, Captain Obvious' when Dex adds, slowly, "Um. But. You made an effort. Thank you? Sorry."

"Uh?" Nursey manages. Both because of the quick 180 and because he's never heard Dex sound so tentative in his life. He half-wonders if the Haus is going to fall down around them, because the Haus, like Dex's general conviction in him being right, is an institution of the Samwell Men's Hockey Team. If one can fall, so can the other. "You're welcome?" And it comes out just as tentative from him as it did from Dex. "Sorry it wasn't helpful. I thought it would be."

"Yeah, that's pretty clear," Dex says, but without bite. "I appreciate you wanting to help, though."

Okay, this is just too weird. "Sorry, did you wake up today and decide to just be a different person? I mean, I feel like this is an improvement, but if you're actually just possessed by some sort of weird demon I might have to put a stop to things."

Dex scrunches his nose up like he can't decide whether to be angry or amused and says, "Uh, no. Well, kind of. My mom told me to try taking out my anger on the other team, not my own defense partner. Ironic, right?"

Considering that Dex's mom's blissfully ignorant questions about girlfriends had sparked Dex's whole frustration-driven coming out to Nursey that morning,  _ yes. _ Nursey nods. "But I'm glad you, like, felt like you could come out to me. Even though we fight all the time and shit."

"Not on the ice, anymore," Dex points out. Which is true. The first time they'd really clicked on the ice was during a game, with Samwell two points behind and Chowder, in the net, only just having recovered from a minor freak-out after the second period. The other team hadn't scored at all, Wicks had gotten one goal, Bitty had gotten one, and Jack had gotten two, and Nursey had felt incredibly awkward afterwards as he realized how well he and Dex worked together if they actually, you know,  _ worked together. _

Dex had probably realized that at the same time, because they'd managed to keep fighting during practice to a minimum.

Maybe it was only a matter of time until one of them figured out the same thing applied even when they didn't have their skates on.

"Not on the ice," Nursey agrees. "If we both try and fight the other team instead of each other, we probably stand a chance at not fighting at all."

Three months later, Nursey discovers that was bullshit.

Sure, they're doing better. They're actually doing so much better that Coach Hall called them into his office to tell them he was proud of their progress, and once Nursey gave Dex a fist bump and pretended not to see Ransom and Holster silently losing their minds over it.

But they still fight. That's just how things work with Nursey and Dex.

(He's even getting used to hearing their names said together, as a pair, like RansomandHolster or OllieandWicks. Even if his and Dex's friendship is much less... well,  _ solid.) _

"I can't believe you actually like the top bunk," Dex says, taking a bite out of his apple with more force than the situation calls for. "We're the  _ same height, _ how do you not hit your head every time you sit up?"

"I'm careful?" Nursey notices he's not sure exactly when Chowder left the Haus kitchen. He definitely did, though, because all three of them came in together, but whatever, Chowder's an adult, and Nursey has a debate to win. "Besides, if I have the bottom bunk I always wind up sitting in my bed doing homework and stuff—"

"Which is  _ nice." _

"But then my brain associates being in bed with doing homework and not with sleeping and when I try to sleep I can't because my brain is like oh, it's time for... fucking Ovid or some shit."

"And then you fall asleep because you skated suicides for half an hour and did planks on your breaks and had an entire hockey practice and then went to class for the whole day," Dex says.

"No, then you stay awake for at least an hour because your brain is rehashing your entire seminar on Roman historians and then for good measure it goes through your entire life and shows you a greatest hits reel of your embarrassing moments, and  _ then _ you can't fall asleep because the people across the hall are having a party." Nursey pauses. "I think I had a point in there somewhere but I got distracted talking about why falling asleep is hard."

"Bunk beds," Dex supplies.

" _ Right. _ So top bunks are ideal because then I can maintain the separation between work and sleep."

"Like the separation of church and state."

"Yes. Also no because that's completely different."

"But they  _ are _ separations. You cannot deny that."

Which is true. "I cannot."

And Dex smiles a little at that and takes another bite out of his apple, and Nursey finds himself a little too absorbed in watching as Dex sticks the apple in his mouth and bites down to keep it there, then pulls out his laptop from his backpack and sets it on the kitchen table.

The apple looks dangerously close to falling out of Dex's mouth, and Nursey stops himself from reaching out to take it before it lands on the floor.

It doesn't, anyway. Dex gets his laptop open and then keeps eating his apple one-handed as he types something.

Becoming friends with Dex erased Nursey's distant, unfortunate, aesthetic-driven crush on him, but it was quickly followed by something worse: a real crush. Because underneath the prickly exterior, when Dex is actually making an effort to get to know someone, he's just... nice to be around. He worries about what other people think of him as much as Nursey does, even if he hides it in a different way. He cheerfully disagrees with Nursey on inane topics, and they get each other into long arguments with the same fervor—  _ passion, _ Nursey's brain supplies unsolicited— as the great Attic vs. Roaches debate, if not the same scale. Because it's just Nursey and Dex, not the whole team. 

He kind of likes it that way.

Coming back to campus for pre-season means a couple of things. It means Nursey has to get back on a regular schedule, after doing pretty much nothing besides sleeping, working out, and relaxing. It means he gets on campus before most people, so he can move in in relative peace. And it means he sees his friends. He sees Dex.

It's been a long summer. Nursey isn't really sure how he'll feel when he gets back to campus. At this point, he's not even really sure what he's hoping for— the idea of feeling secure in a platonic friendship with Dex and not having to worry about any crush-related feelings is tempting, sure, but Nursey feels like if he gets back to campus and Dex is just another friend, he will have lost something.

Or maybe that's just the romantic in him talking. Either way, whatever happens happens and Nursey is just going to have to deal.

That mindset lasts all the way until he's walking to the Haus after unpacking in his dorm room and hears someone yell " _ Nursey!" _ from behind him.

He turns around, and there's Dex, barreling towards him with a lot more freckles and sun-kissed red hair and a t-shirt that is a little more snug than is probably decent and a huge smile, and Nursey has barely registered all of this before Dex catches up and  _ hugs him. _

_ Excuse me? _

Even after Dex had come out— and Nursey doesn't even know how many people on the team he's out to, it doesn't seem like many— he still hasn't been a touchy person. Especially not to Nursey, barring fingers pointed in faces and things like that. And funnily enough, they'd touched each other even less once they stopped fighting all the time. But now...

Now, here they are, and Nursey would be lying to himself if he said he didn't want to be here.

So he hugs back, and tries to keep his voice calm as he says, "Dex! Hey, man, how are you?" and hopes Dex can't feel his heart hammering in his chest like if it beats fast enough it'll convince Dex's heart to match.

Fuck.

The night before Ransom, Holster, and Lardo's graduation finds Nursey and Dex sitting in the Reading Room and talking options.

They've never shared a room before. They've shared  _ spaces, _ and sometimes they both crash in Chowder's room at the Haus after a kegster, and once Nursey brought Dex leftover pie while he was cramming for a midterm and wound up hanging out in his room for a while. That's about it.

"If we do a bunk bed, we'll have a lot more floor space," Dex says. "And then you can have the top bunk you've always dreamed of. Although I'm still not sure I believe you about not falling out."

"Aw, William, you remembered? I'm touched." And Nursey tries his best to make sure that comes out sounding funny and not sad or wistful or anything like that.

This is something he's considered, and then immediately decided to ignore. It will be harder to hide his crush on Dex if they live together. It's already hard now, after a full year of spending more and more time together. Nursey has never appreciated plaid flannel shirts the way he does now, after mentally cataloguing Dex's entire collection (he has eight, but don't let that fool you, he wears the same three over and over and breaks out the other ones for special occasions). Every day he gets a little more worried that Dex will catch him staring and Nursey won't think of a witty remark in time.

And it's not just Dex he's worried about, because Holster has definitely started to give Nursey Looks when he catches Nursey staring at Dex. Someone has clearly caught on to what's going on, and the only good thing about it is that Holster hasn't tried to say anything about it to him.

Well. Holster's graduating, and next year Nursey will have a whole new crop of teammates who will be blissfully in the dark. And isn't  _ that _ a terrifying thought.

"I don't want them to leave," he says, but he doesn't explain why.

Thankfully, Dex doesn't ask. "I was just thinking that. But we'll cope." He says it so plainly, like it's already a foregone conclusion. "Even if Bitty makes us get up at four AM for... what did he call them?"

"Soviet calisthenics."

"Right. How could I forget?" And he smiles, and even though Nursey is pretending to look vaguely across the street in the direction of the LAX house, he sees it and he immediately wants to smile back.

So he does. What's the harm?

"But anyway," Dex says. "The room. I don't think we can compete with Ollie and Wicks for interior design, Wicks showed me his Pinterest board and I'm pretty sure it was just to intimidate me? But it fucking worked, so. Let's at least make our room a place we can both live in."

"What was on the Pinterest board?" What aspects of interior design intimidate Dex, is what Nursey really wants to know, because he always wants to know everything there is to know about Dex. But he'll settle for this clue instead.

"A chandelier and hand-knitted throw blankets. Also,  _ shiplap." _

"I... only have a vague idea of what that is."

"That's okay, all you need to know is that it's very popular on HGTV home makeovers." Dex scoffs. "Waste of time and money if you ask me."

And that's so like Dex that Nursey can't help but laugh and say, "I can't believe I didn't like you our first semester." When Dex raises his eyebrows, he says, "Like, our opinions clashed and all of that, but you're just so..."  _ Passionate. _ There's that fucking word again. Big nope. " _ Sure _ of yourself." It had pissed Nursey off at the beginning, before he'd realized that most of Dex's strongly held opinions were either correct or just... totally irrelevant to them being able to get along. Like the fucking bottom bunk thing. Dex is  _ clearly _ wrong, he just hasn't accepted it. 

Dex's voice sounds a little odd when he says, "That doesn't sound like a 'but', that sounds like another reason you didn't like me."

"More like... fuck. No, that's not the right word to use, sorry." Nursey's going to have to fucking say 'passionate', isn't he. The universe is against him right now, but he doesn't know what that weird tone is in Dex's voice and he doesn't want to turn and look at him to find out. "Not sure of yourself. You're just... when you care about something, you really  _ care _ about it, you know? I admire that. Being... passionate." Fuck, he said it. Fuck fuck fuck.

Dex's voice still sounds strange when he says, "I admire you too, you know."

And  _ that _ makes Nursey whip around faster than he has ever turned in his  _ life. _

Dex is sitting cross legged, wearing his preferred red flannel, looking right at Nursey, and his face is flushing a little but he repeats, "I admire you too. Because you're really dedicated to, like, growing as a person and shit. You want to be your best self. It makes me want to do that too."

"...Thanks."

With that, Nursey resigns himself to the conversation being over, but he hasn't turned back to stare vaguely in the LAX house's general direction before Dex says, fingers twisting in the hem of his flannel, "Can I ask you something?"

"Sure," Nursey says, and hopes he won't regret it.

"Is something wrong?"

"Huh?"

Dex stops twisting up the hem of his flannel and laces his fingers together like he's trying to keep them still. Which he is, Nursey realizes, because fiddling with clothing is one of Dex's nervous tics. (He has several.) "You haven't wanted to hang out as much lately. And you seem stressed about something but I don't know what it would be since our finals are done and our season's done and everything. You don't have to tell me the details, but... is there something I can do?"

Well. Nursey regrets this already. But... no better time to say things you might regret than in the middle of the night before leaving for an entire summer, right? Worst case scenario, all he has to do is get through the graduation ceremony, then he'll be back in New York and he can text Dex sometime in July and say he's over him. Even if it's not true.

"Uh, there's nothing  _ wrong, _ really, but..." If he's going to do it, he needs to be all-in. "Sorry about avoiding you, I don't think I even consciously realized I was doing it? But I just... I've been really stressed about getting through next year. Because I've had a huge crush on you for like a year and I don't know what's going to happen next year if we're living together and don't look at me like that, I've been coping fine, and I don't want to make you uncomfortable or anything, I just... Well, you asked," Nursey finishes lamely, because he doesn't know what to say to get that look of shock off Dex's face. "Sorry."

He waits for a moment before actually looking at Dex becomes too much, and he gets up to go inside. Coping with commencement and texting Dex he's over him in July it is.

"Wait," Dex says, urgency coloring his voice, and Nursey stops almost before he's got the syllable out of his mouth.

And he turns around, and Dex is standing too, and he says, "There  _ is _ something I can do." And before Nursey can ask what, Dex continues, "I've been telling myself for months to just let it go away, but... I have had a crush on you for  _ so long—" _ and then he stops abruptly, and Nursey doesn't know what to think for a second, and then Dex says, "Sorry, I was going to call you Nursey but then I wasn't sure if that was the right choice given the context so I just kind of froze?"

"Oh my god," Nursey says, and that's as far as he gets before he starts to laugh and also maybe tear up a little because he has been stressing about this ever since that dib flip. "We're so dumb."

"Complete idiots," Dex agrees, and his voice sounds a little shaky, which just makes it match Nursey's own. "Oh, God, I think I'm going to sit down." And he sits back down, and Nursey joins him, only a lot closer than the careful two feet he had left between them earlier. "I am  _ so _ glad I asked."

"Speaking of asking things, what do we do now?"

"You mean about the room next year, or just in general?"

"Both, I guess."

Dex contemplates it for a second. "I'm pretty sure we can handle sharing a room. Like, all we have to do is communicate with each other, right?"

"It's been working pretty well everywhere else in our lives," Nursey agrees.

"So that's that for the room. And in general... I guess that just depends on what we want."

Nursey considers that. "Well, what I want right now is to ask if I can kiss you, and I think the rest can wait until tomorrow."

"That works for me," Dex says, and he smiles when he pulls Nursey in for a kiss that feels like it validates every minute Nursey spent pining. He'd do it all again for another chance to throw his arms over Dex's shoulders and pull him closer, and closer, and closer, until there's no space between their bodies at all.

Nursey is pretty sure junior year is going to be  _ great. _

**Author's Note:**

> i'm taking prompts on tumblr during quarantime!! hit me up there @birlcholtz
> 
> thank you for reading, kudosing, and commenting!!
> 
> love, birl <3


End file.
